An appeal from ROCA clergy

[joasia]

Tom,

YOU are still being difficult. I wasn't answering your question. I was asking YOU a question.

Do you have NO understanding about the struggles that ROCA went through these passed 80 years?

This is a response to your question to priestmark. I wasn't ATTEMPTING to answer your question...I was just simply asking you a question.

Don't try to confuse the issue, Tom.

You just can't seem to answer a simple question. What DO you know about the difference of ROCA and MP? Priestmark was making a very good point. But can you recognize that?

[Elijah]

Umm..Hate to put myself in the middle of this but I really don't see what your point is here Joasia. Tom simply posted a question in regard to that Priestmark said because he didn't clearly understand it. Questions like his are a GOOD thing. I don't see why you then ask him if he has "NO" understanding of the history of the struggle between ROCA and the MP after he asks one question. Seems like a kind of an offensive thing to say. Just because he asks a question doesn't mean to doesn't recognize and appreciate any of the points Priestmark made. And then on top of this you ask him if he is being difficult and that you have noticed that he is difficult in his other posts. I don't want to seem harsh but look back at what you have written. You are the one attacking him it seems..

With love in Christ,
Elijah

[TomS]

Do you have NO understanding about the struggles that ROCA went through these passed 80 years?

Yes, I am aware of them. And I ask you again -- tell me where the difference in FAITH lies.

The Calendar, Ecumenism, Sergianism is NOT the FAITH.

What part of the Creed do they disagree on?

[尼古拉前执事]

Ecumenism, Sergianism is NOT the FAITH.

Right they are abominations to the Faith.

I would have to disagree with what I assume was your point however Thomas. Ecumenism is accepting heresy and heretics as part of the Church. Sergianism is letting Godless Authorities control the Church and Her teachings. How could either of these things not be matters of the Faith?

[TomS]

Ecumenism, Sergianism is NOT the FAITH.

Right they are abominations to the Faith.

I would have to disagree with what I assume was your point however Thomas. Ecumenism is accepting heresy and heretics as part of the Church. Sergianism is letting Godless Authorities control the Church and Her teachings. How could either of these things not be matters of the Faith?

Ecumenism is not really a part of the issue for ROCOR/ROCA anyway. That's was more the Greeks. I was just posting examples of what ROCOR considered Heresy. But either way - Ecumenism comes in different degrees. Reading the books on Ecumenism from the Center for Traditional Orthodox Studies, it really didn't start out the way that it has become. It was not until the 1970's that it became even non-christian religions.

Sergianism -- now that is a fairly valid point. But that was THEN. Wasn't the idea from the beginning that ROCOR was only relevant while the Russian Church was in bondage? After that ended, the plan was always to re-enter communion and go back under the MP?

So, I don't see where both of these issues are all that relevant today.

Yes -- the MP should acknowledge the Russian Saints who fought and died defending the Faith while the Russian Church was in bondage -- but that will come with time.

The point I was making about the Faith was a direct quote in the letter that priestmark posted. And I want someone to explain the basis for that charge to me -- 'cause I don't see how that charge is valid.

[尼古拉前执事]

Ecumenism is not really a part of the issue for ROCOR/ROCA anyway. That's was more the Greeks

Well the Sergianist MP was also (by official decree, as I understand it) communing Monophysites and Roman Catholics. I know it is more associated with the Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople, but Moscow has some guilt in this too it seems.

[Anastasios]

If Sergianism, defined as letting the (godless) authorities run the church, then we're all graceless because the Turks, Peter the Not-So-Great, various heretical Byzantine Emperors, and the Latins have all "run" the church at some point in time.

Giving in to the authorities and collaborating with them is a sin but not a heresy.

anastasios